BSG Anders spec

[lizardbeth]

Some BSG pseudo-meta caused by bemoaning how my precious "Anders for President!" fanon is well on its way to getting jossed...

Non-Anders fans - y'all can move along, nothing to see here...



YO PEEPS! SPOILERS!


(this is all based on my (possibly wishful thinking) memory that Trucco's in the final eps of S.3, not just "Maelstrom". I can't however find confirmation of that at the moment, so all of this might be totally wrong. So. With that caveat out of the way....)

We know that Anders gets "a storyline of his own" after Kara disappears. I think, given that Trucco implied it was separate from Kara, we can assume that it's not some crazed quest to find her.

So what is it?

I think my fanon may not be as dead as I thought, even if it's not exactly the same thing. The reason I came up with Anders for Prez for the story is because main human characters have two bases on BSG: military and politics. Almost all of them are military, except for the few political people: Roslin, Zarek, Billy, Tory, etc. Despite his mad resistance skillz, I don't think Sam's joining the marines, so that left politics. And as we've all discussed, he's got to be popular among the folk -- former celebrity, resistance hero, hot... That's an INVITATION to politics, especially when politics are more personal. There are only 40,000 odd people in the whole damn fleet, after all, and most of them have to know OF him. My question for the fic was only whether he supported Roslin or jumped into competition with her.

Until I became convinced he's one of the Final Five. And that seemed to dump him into the third category of characters: the Cylons. I still believe he's one of them. But I think that's going to be the revelation of the finale, but it's not, in fact, his arc of the final three episodes of S.3. (Being one of the Final Five will likely become his arc for s.4 -- otheres' accepting him as one of "them", Kara coming back, etc) This season, though, Anders is still a supporting character. THe question is -- whose story is he going to be supporting, if it's not Kara anymore?

I have a guess who it might be (GUESS being the operative word -- I have no concrete spoilers at all for this, just a bunch of vague connections. Fanfic ideas dressed up as meta, if you like). lyssie pointed out in a recent post about Exodus that Anders and Roslin had a very cozy, trusting relationship on New Caprica. I don't think that's gone away (or more precisely, I suspect the PTB may have remembered it) and we may find out that when Sam's been away from the Galactica he's been working for Roslin. Roslin knows he was in the resistance, he's on her short list of people who were likely in the Circle, she trusts him, and she's politically astute enough to know that he's a valuable political commodity. What he's doing on her behalf or what he'll be doing for her in the finale, I can't guess, but we know there will be multiple cliffhangers, so there are several plot lines going on.

Basically I just think it would be awesome if she's been grooming him for Veep or the Quorum of Twelve, sending him out to talk to people, etc., them working together during Baltar's trial, and THEN, bam, he's revealed as a Cylon. Because, see, on a structural level, with Kara gone -- if it's true, the revelation has to shake up someone, otherwise there's no bang-y-ness to it, and Roslin's the most likely character I think. She represents the most anti-Cylon attitude (so the one with the most need for a shock to the system).

Thoughts?

Okay, since I'm in a predictive mood, I'll also add that my guess is that Tyrol's going to be the Chosen One to identify (some of) the Final Five Cylons. He's in the unique position of knowing all the suspects and he's already been subject to a 'revelation', which led him to the temple in the first place. He was also the last person to stand in the temple before it blew up. His experience with Boomer may help him identify 'sleeper' programming in one of them.

So, let's tie these together and you can see how Liz's mind works: Roslin knows there are five more Cylons out there, in such deep cover even the Lesser Seven don't know what they look like (so interrogating Sharon and Caprica won't work). She sends her most trusted anti-Cylon resistance fighters, Anders and Tyrol, to dig out these Five (Anders and Tyrol because they were leaders and because, unlike Tigh, she can trust them not to go on a witch hunt). They dig one up (someone we know but not a major character). They find another. Something starts happening with Sam, Tyrol starts getting a bad feeling... Ok, so now you know how I might pay off Anders' story, now we'll have to wait and see if I'm even in the same ballpark. *g*

Unless Baltar really is the Chosen One after all... It would be hilarious if they discover the Final Five through Baltar's Cylon detector; that way he'd be the one to identify them, just not in a mystical way.

Comments

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Tyrol also id'd Cavil.

Which is... kind of ironic, since he was having dreams about BEING a cylon, and killing himself. (IRONY IS GOOD, RON. STICK WITH IT.)

Although, Gaius finding them all with his cylon detector would be amusing (although he'd need another warhead for it, not that I know what the warhead was for, and no, I don't think head!Six was planning for Gina's explosion).

You've got a point, though. Maybe the writers will remember that they can do more than write the same groupings over and over. Damnit. They need to mix it up!

And I... don't remember where Ron says that Sam gets his own story, towards the end of the season. hrm.

[lizardbeth-j.livejournal.com]

I've never been clear on whether Gaius actually needed the warhead for the detector or he just threw that in to obtain one (for future use). so, maybe the detector COULD work without it. not that I think that's what they'll do - I just thought it'd be ironic and funny.

Well, I do remember Trucco at the con and HE said the separate story thing. He also mentioned how Sam's occupation story and being connected to other characters had sort of relaxed his earlier fear of being Martouf Mark II. I can't however remember whether he was also the source for my belief that he's in the last three eps or not, and I didn't put it in my report. However, assuming he is, then it makes what he said about 'other connections' more pointy - since he would've just finished filming S.3, those other connections would be on his mind. Which means New Caprica people, I'd think. Maybe Roslin. I had thought at the time that he was talking about "Collaborators", but that was before I knew about the Kara spoilers and that she wasn't in the last eps.

But anyway, yeah, I'd like some mixing up too. It'd just be nice if we could see Sam with Roslin doing something other than hanging around Kara. Not that I mind him with Kara, but I'd like him to stand on his own again.

[jashyr.livejournal.com]

The Patriot Resource was my source that he'd filmed scenes for the finale at least.

Politics makes far too much sense at this point, his relatively good relationship with both sides of the political fence as well as the military would put him in an excellent position over this.

One thing that hasn't come up which I was always expecting is Zarek's reaction to Anders. I can see Zarek as equating Anders' position to himself in his militant days and considering Zarek's usual plays for power, trying to bring Sam over to his way of thinking could be interesting.

Anyway, are we going to get more 'Anders for Prez' fic? Please? Pretty please? *Pokes writer with the pointy stick of encouragement*

[lizardbeth-j.livejournal.com]

OW! People are always poking me with pointy things! (that sounds more dirty than I meant...*snerk*) More soon-ish. emphasis on the 'ish'. *g*

Yeah, I'd like to see something with Zarek and Anders too, because they could either be allies or enemies. As far as I can tell Anders only knows Roslin, but it's easy enough to find a scenario where they'd have a falling out and Zarek would swoop in to set him up to become the opposition.

[samanthamarie88.livejournal.com]

Ron did state in an interview with Kristin at E! that Sam does have his own Kara-less storyline in the final 3 eps. He didn't give any clues to that story though. All he said was it is "hard to describe".

I can see Sam in the political arena. He does have the charisma and people-skills to relate to the "common man". I'd vote for him. Or at the very least, he'd be a good celebrity endorsement to have. And I really like the thought of Tyrol and his spidey-sense figuring out that something just isn't right with Sam. That would be interesting since Tyrol does seem to have connections to hidden Cylons with Boomer and Cavil. Wouldn't that frak him up a bit to know that yet one more person he knows and trusts is a Cylon.

To me, Baltar is the Chosen One though. And I also think that he is going to save his ass at his trial by either A) revealing another big clue about the way to Earth or B) revealing one or more of the Final Five. But I'd love to see the Cylon detector come back into play.

[lizardbeth-j.livejournal.com]

argh! Thank you! I didn't think I'd made it up, but then I couldn't remember where I'd first heard it. I looked in the obvious places but it was just stated as something "everybody knows". Very annoying.

And yeah, definitely Baltar's gonna have to pull something out to save himself. Being really, really sorry isn't going to cut it.